This invention relates to methods for teaching pre-emergent and emergent readers, and, in particular, an apparatus for accomplishing these tasks.
There are various known devices for teaching pre-emergent and emergent readers alphabet and phoneme awareness, recognition of spelling patterns and initial consonant sounds, word building, and sentence construction. However, as students progress in skill level, these devices do not provide a consistent or progressively challenging approach throughout the process of teaching reading and spelling, nor are they suitable for teaching such readers via several different methods. Different people learn in different ways, e.g., seeing, doing, touching (manipulating).
Known devices include kits of substantially two-dimensional pieces which offer different colors and different sizes of parts that fit together and bear letters, word parts or words to reinforce reading and spelling skills, but they do not offer the opportunity to simultaneously mix and match different, but similar, information. That is, because the pieces are flat each such piece provides only one visible piece of reading information. For example, alphabet pieces will have only one letter of the alphabet visible. There are also kits of three-dimensional pieces shaped like blocks and bearing letters, word parts or words to reinforce reading and spelling skills, which may be placed next to each other, but which do not connect together. Without connection, the blocks are easily disturbed by beginning readers who lack good small motor skills. Thus, the known three-dimensional pieces lack tactile connections. Also known are three-dimensional, snap-fit blocks used to teach math skills. These blocks, however, do not teach reading skills and carry only one kind of math indicia on any given block.
Consequently, a need exists for, and it is an object of this invention to provide, a method for teaching reading, spelling, and grammar/usage using an apparatus which can be used to facilitate different learning methods, progressively challenge students as they improve their skills, and permit interlocking of letters, word parts or words to teach reading, spelling, and grammar/usage.
The present invention is comprised of kits including a variety of three-dimensional, connectable color-coded blocks. Each kit can be used for a different step or level in learning to read, from the initial steps of learning the difference between vowels and consonants and matching letter sounds to pictures, to building at first shorter and then longer words, to finally constructing sentences. The users can choose the order of teaching to fit their basal program. The blocks include xe2x80x9creading indiciaxe2x80x9d or units of reading information on multiple sides, e.g., pictures, letters, phonemes, word parts, or words. In a preferred embodiment, the various information is pre-applied to the blocks so that the information is readable with the male portion of the snap oriented to the user""s right. This facilitates the left-to-right reading practice of the English language. Additional information is provided to the user by varying the color of the blocks according to the type of information displayed (e.g., vowel and consonant blocks are different colors in one of the kits). The length of the blocks also varies according to the information conveyed. For example, blocks with a single letter are smaller in length than blocks with multiple letters. The blocks all have the same cross-sectional size, so that when two or more blocks are connected, their indicia-bearing faces are co-planar. Blank blocks are also included for use as xe2x80x9cunknownxe2x80x9d letters in sequencing activities, as letters or words that the user would like to add to the set, and as replacement blocks that can be written on with either a permanent or dry-erase marker.
Each block has systematic, developmentally appropriate information. To encourage recognition of an alliterative pattern, for example, certain blocks have different, but related, indicia or information on each side. For instance, a block could have both uppercase and lowercase forms of the same letter. By combining two or more blocks so that selected indicia appear on adjoining faces, an xe2x80x9cintelligible reading unitxe2x80x9d, such as a word or sentence, is formed.
An intelligible reading unit results from the combination of two or more reading indicia. Besides words or sentences, these units include other grammatical units, such as subject-verb, or linguistic units, such as consonant blends, as well as units formed by combining picture and letter indicia (e.g., a picture of an apple with the letter xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d).
Each kit is designed to develop specific types of reading or phonics skills and thus each kit provides different types of information. However, all the kits have certain elements in common. The blocks satisfy the needs of visual, aural, and tactile (kinesthetic) learning styles. For instance, the blocks are designed to be removably fixed together, so that inadvertent manipulation will not change the teacher or student-selected order of the blocks. Preferably, the block connection occurs in a single direction or orientation, thus reinforcing the directionality of reading that is necessary to eventually develop good reading skills. Also, each kit is used to build an intelligible reading unit including reading indicia from at least two different blocks (sub-parts), each of which is found on color-coded blocks. For instance, one kit can be used to assemble a picture/letter unit including a block with pictures and a block carrying the first or last letter of the word naming that picture. Because the picture blocks and the letter blocks are different colors, the user can be taught to associate the different colors with different types of information (i.e., red means vowels, blue means consonants), and eventually to recognize a particular type of information (e.g., vowels) without the triggering color association. Thus, the color of a block in any kit will suggest the type of reading indicia carried on its sides. Additionally, with color-coded blocks, the teacher can confirm from a distance that a particular student""s assembly at least appears to be correct. In one embodiment, the blocks are predrilled so they may be threaded as if they were beads on a string.
Although the invention is described in terms of the alphabet and English words, the invention could just as easily be adapted to teach reading with other alphabets and other languages.